南向き翻訳事務所 岩渕デボラ ブログ

We took a large-family trip to Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare Festival (sorry, no pics of the plays), and on the way there and back enjoyed the bounties unique to the northernmost part of California and Southern Oregon coast. It was my photographer’s first trip to Oregon and he enjoyed the experience with lots (and lots) of photos.

オレゴン州への旅の写真。目的はシェークスペアー劇祭で有名なアシュランド市。でも行きと帰りで北カリフォルニアと南オレゴンなりではの見どころをたくさん 回りました。うちのカメラマンにとっては初めてのオレゴン州なのでたくさん写真を撮りました。

See below a couple of the famous California and Oregon redwoods, grapes from a winery in Mendecino County, and the harbor at Fort Bragg, complete with sea lions swimming around.

西海岸だけに立つ巨大なredwoodの木の森を歩いたら、どの木も違う特長を持っています。森の中はとても静かです。北カリフォルニアのワイナリーとそれぞれのブドウ畑も次から次からありました。Fort Braggという町でお昼を食べるためによったら、あざらしが何匹か港に泳いでいました。

The Olympics have begun!  The presidential campaign is underway and the conventions are right around the corner! It’s a fine time to be in the old country.

Even more fun, though, is what we found at the local grocery store.  Can you read the label? Double click on the photo for a closer look…

「ムースのよだれ」 というビールです。もしかして、英語だとおいしそうに聞こえる？いいえ、聞こえません。写真にクリックすれば、よだれを出しているムースの絵がはっきりと見えます。今里帰り中です。オリンピックや大統領選挙でにぎわっている母国では、うちはと言えば、スーパーをゆっくりまわって遊んでいます。思わず、この微妙な新製品を買ってしまいました。父には「ムースのよだれ飲む？」と愛想よく聞いたら、ちょっと不機嫌に「ビールなら飲むよ」とかえってきました。

以外とおいしかったです．．．

The Four Stories website now has MP3 downloads and photographs from the June 15 Four Stories event in Osaka at Portugalia. I’m the one with her bangs in her eyes and too nervous to sit down and read. I read from Translucent Tree by Nobuko Takagi.  It wasn’t exactly in keeping with the theme, but the other three stories certainly were and they are definitely worth a listen to!

高樹のぶ子先生の“Soaked in Asia” ブログに新作短編の「投」の英訳が載っています。今回の英訳を高樹先生に頼まれて、私のウェブ上英訳が初めてです。高樹先生はアジアの国々を旅して、各国で短編を書いて、雑誌にご出版後、ブログで英訳を乗せています。今回は上海についての話です。是非見て下さい。話の中に石庫門について書かれています。私はこの短編を読む前まで聞いたことがなかったですが、昔からの上海の特徴的な住宅です。最近では次々と取り壊されて、高層ビルがたてられているそうです。

See Nobuko Takagi’s blog, “Soaked in Asia,” and read the English version of her latest short story “Casting Out,” which I translated. Ms. Takagi visits different Asian countries, writing a short story at each location. The story is first printed in the original Japanese in a magazine, and then in English and Japanese on her blog.

The story, set in Shanghai, focuses on a character who lives in a traditional type of dwelling called shikumen. Here is an article on it from The Standard. I’d never heard of shikumen before doing this story. Most are (apparently) made of brick; multi-family dwellings with courtyards. They sound cozy to me, but, according to this and other recent articles, including one in the New Yorker, shikumen are being torn down in droves to make way for skyscrapers.

For some reason I cannot fathom, I announced this new book on my website, but forgot to do it up big here!

Beyond the Blossoming Fields by well-known author Jun’ichi Watanabe, and translated by Anna Isozaki and myself–with the kind assistance of Deborah Davidson and Manna Iwabuchi, not to mention all of the kind folk at the Japan Literature PublishingProject (JLPP) ,was published by a fine British publisher, Alma Books, and released this spring.

Watanabe is better known for somewhat racier novels, but this was his first as a doctor-turned-author, the story of Ginko Ogino, the first licensed female doctor in Japan. She was born less than an hour away from where Anna and I live, in Menuma, a small town on the Saitama side of the Gunma border. Of equal interest to me was that she was a Christian. In fact she was baptized by Danjo Ebina, a follower of Niijima Jo (another big Gunma name!) and the first pastor of Maebashi Church, where I am currently a member.

Personally, I love books in the non-fiction genre (truth is always stranger–and often more interesting–than fiction. Ginko led a remarkable and colorful life in Menuma, Tokyo and in Hokkaido. And her persistence in pursuing a career that was specifically and systematically denied to women will keep you spellbound. In addition to the details of the main theme, learn how she struggled throughout most of her life from a serious and chronic disease, how she led a crew of bone smugglers into a graveyard at night, how she ran her practice–the Ogino Clinic, protected prostitutes from the local thugs, her marriage to a man who took her to the wilds of Hokkaido–and much, much more.

My baby sister just put out her fourth CD of baroque flute music. This one is Joseph Bodin de Boismortier: Six Suites, Op. 35 for Unaccompanied Flute. It’s available at “CD Baby,” (An extremely congenial web site. They send you love letters after you order!)

If you like that one (and I know you will), be sure to order her second-most recent album, Music for Flute & Guitar, with Georges Torres.

ああ、写真撮れば良かった。土日と旦那のごちそうを家族全員プラス娘たちの友達２人でいただきました。

土曜日は煮豚(焼き豚みたいなjuicyな煮込んだ肉）とアボカドのディップとチップス。日曜日はちらしずしとゴーヤチャンプル。大人数で愛情たっぷりのごちそうを食べながら、楽しい会話がありました。久しぶりでした。

Both daughters are at home, and adding to the pleasure of that, my husband cooked for all of us (including two friends of daughters) Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we had his specialty, a kind of Japanese-style pork accompanied with a Japanese adaptation of Americanized guacamole dip with tortilla-chips-as-available. Sunday we had chirashizushi and the Okinawan dish–goya champuru–pictured above.

Food full of love and affection and outrageously hilarious conversation. It doesn’t get much better than this!

I borrowed this irresistible photo from the Daily Yomiuri. And here is the text from the newspaper:

TABLE TOSSING A man competes in a tableware-tossing contest, violently tipping over a dining table in Yahabacho, Iwate Prefecture, on Saturday. Participants in the Second-annual Table Overturning World Championships vied to see who could send a piece of tableware the furthest solely from the force of the low table holding the dishes being overturned. The returning champion, a 22-year-old university student from Morioka, won again with a toss of 5.87 meters.

FM Gunma reported that the contest took place in a shopping center, and that there were 17 contestants, each of whom shouted out a pet peeve as they tossed the table (note man with mike behind contestant). The tableware itself was made of plastic, meaning no permanent damage or dangerous flying bits and pieces.

The look on the face of the man in the picture says it all. Isn’t upturning a table what everyone would like to do? I have heard chucking crockery in the bathtub recommended as a way to get rid of stress, but this looks like more fun–there’s even an audience to appreciate the effort. That is what we need in Japan. Less knifing of pedestrians on the street and more table tossing competitions!

Have I mentioned Thespa–my local soccer team lately? I’m sure I haven’t since they began making their way up in the standings! After three years in the basement–the very root cellar of soccer standings– they’ve been actually WINNING MATCHES! And are currently no. 6 in a field of 15 teams. Last week they beat Cerezo Osaka, the no. 3 team. Tomorrow they will be playing no. 4 Sagantosu from Saga. It’s almost disorienting to look at the ranking chart of J2 teams, because the eye of a loyal Thespa fan will automatically go to the bottom of the list. Not finding it, one has a momentary and very frightening sense that the team has completely disappeared from the face of the earth. It takes a few seconds to realize you just need to go up a little higher–and (remarkably) there they are! Ooooooh Thespa!

ただ今、ザスパ勝ち続けています！ (うちの者いわく、引き分けをはさんで5連勝）J2で６位に輝いています。3年間のどん底状態が突然報われました。試合後の選手の笑顔が眩しい。水曜日、3位のセレッソ大阪に勝ち、明日は4位のサガン鳥栖との試合です。降っても照っても行きます。敷島の県立陸上競技場ーではなくてー正田醤油スタジアムで集まりましょう！

Anne Ishii, expert on literature, manga, things Japanese, and prolific blogger (and there’s more…) has posted a fascinating interview with author Nobuko Takagi about her book, Translucent Tree, on the Bookslut site.

It is in my best interests to ask you to buy the book and THEN read the interview, but why wait? Not only do Anne and Ms. Takagi discuss the book, but also stranger-than-fiction aspects of the author’s life.